Thursday, April 18, 2013

The Weekly Sneak: Farewell, sistren.

Margaret Thatcher, and Bi Kidude? The universe has been a little greedy this week. They were very old ladies, and tired after a long lifetime of doing what they did. It feels good, and right, to wish them a restful release from this mortal coil.

I revered them- in a tasteful, restrained kind of way of course. Over the course of my life I have tried to commit to an appreciation for the soft qualities that women are supposed to aspire to- gentleness and nurturing and hairlessness and little or no muscle definition, et cetera. And I do, I swear I sort-of-almost- do. But I am absolutely hopelessly devoted to the strongly flavored women- the Joan of Arc nutjobs and the Bi Kidude griots and the Margaret Thatcher commandante types. Even chose my confirmation name on the basis of the badassness of the Catholic saint I took it from.

So when they pass, I am compelled to put some small offering on their funeral pyre, as it were:

"On the same day that the
late Margaret Thatcher was being laid to rest in London, Fatma binti Baraka
passed away at home in Zanzibar. The one was a conservative politician in a
modernizing country, gritty enough that she could have called Vladimir Putin a
girly-man to his face and then eaten the Red Army for breakfast. The other was
a spry songstress who got away with a delightfully indulgent lifestyle in a
place that still struggles with the permissiveness of the 21st
Century. Though they were polar opposites, both women commanded great respect
and some affection."